The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to isolated populations of cells and methods of generating and using same.
Human embryonic stem cells (hUES) have the ability to differentiate into various cell lineages in vitro and in vivo including but not limited to melanocytes, hematopoietic cells, hepatocytes, kidney cells, skeletal muscle cells, dopaminergic neurons, glial cells, cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, and osteoblasts. hESCs cells are therapeutically attractive because of this pluripotency. The use of such cells and their differentiated progeny is contemplated for the treatment of various conditions. Thus, while huES cells provide a potential cellular source for tissue engineering application, a major limitation resides in the heterogeneity of the committed cell population. The absence of known tissue-specific stem cell surface marker usually prevents cell sorting of the desired cell type, retaining thus contaminated undifferentiated huES which can still produce teratoma. Among the different cell types that can be generated from ES cells, ectodermal cells are of particular interest since they represent the precursors of many epithelial tissues and organs. Although previous studies have reported epithelial differentiation of murine and human ES cells, the heterogeneity of the cell culture impairs the evaluation of homogenous differentiated cell population for cell therapy.